Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)

by Robin Hobb

Then he recognized the lie and turned to embrace what he felt and thus understand it.

“Weary and sorrowful we may be, but tomorrow will not wait.”

Like many casually cruel men, he had never truly considered why he behaved as he did. It was sufficient for him that he could.

At the moment of deciding not to argue further, he had given up all emotional investment in the situation. He had withdrawn his anma into himself as he had been taught to do, divesting it of his anger and offense as he did so. It was not that these emotions were unworthy or inappropriate; it was simply that they were wasted upon the man. He swept his mind clean of reactions to the filthy blanket. By the time he reached the foredeck, he had regained not just calmness, but wholeness.

She had conceded when she should have fought, fought when she should have conceded.

Despite the blood bond between them, this man was a stranger, and his beliefs were so utterly different from all Wintrow had embraced that he felt no hope of reaching him.

Forgiving the Day. Even the youngest child could do this; all it required was looking back over the day and dismissing the day’s pains as a thing that were past while choosing to remember as gains lessons learned or moments of insight.

“It is the nature of humans that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else.”

There was always something to be learned from any experience, no matter how horrendous. As long as a man kept sight of that, his spirit could prevail against anything. It was only when one gave in and believed the universe to be nothing more than a chaotic collection of unfortunate or cruel events that one’s spirit could be crushed.

remember that few prophets are treated well in their home towns.”

What you are born to be, you will be, whether it be priest or sailor. So step up and be it. Let them do nothing to you. Be the one who shapes yourself. Be who you are, and eventually all will have to recognize who you are, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

Then bitterness came to darken his soul.

‘Only my pain is more silent than my anger.’

Perhaps he was the one who was truly mad, for a key hung at his belt and he did nothing.

But all the words he could utter in a lifetime would not make his father understand him.

“You spin your word so thin, I doubt anyone could be bound by it,”

As long as he was determined to live, Wintrow had a powerful ally in curing him.